mosque – derrickjknight

A Knight’s Tale (58: Brick Lane)

I cannot write about the devastating day which led to the events that follow.

Jackie and I, sadly, parted in September 1972, and, for the first time, I left SW19/20 for East London, where I spent a month with Tony and Madeleine, at whose wedding in 1970 ‘The Bridesmaid’ photograph was taken. I will never forget seeing, when bereft, and carrying a suitcase, I turned into Lolesworth Buildings, Thrawl Street, Whitechapel, Madeleine standing on their top floor balcony beating a carpet hanging over the railings in the bright sunshine that caught the flying dust. Tony tells me this building, c.1880, was demolished in 1979.

Thrawl Street stands off Brick Lane which, since the 18th Century, has received successive groups of immigrants. The French Huguenots fled to this part of London in the 1700s. Irish people and then Ashkenazi Jews followed in the 19th Century. In the later 20th century, Bangladeshi Bengalis from Sylhet comprised the major group of immigrants and gradually predominated in the area. Many Bengali immigrants to Brick Lane were from the Greater Sylhet region of what became Bangladesh.

During the month I lived there I ate almost daily at one of the two or three Bangladeshi men’s cafés. There was just one set meal of a curry and chapattis with a saucer of raw chillis on the side. The price was £1 and it is where I developed my taste for hot chilli. Opposite my favourite of these establishments stood the Brick Lane synagogue, which had begun life in 1743 as a Huguenot church. The building was acquired by the Jewish immigrant community in 1898 and, because of the decline in numbers on account of their moving to other parts of London, closed in 1973, the year after I was there. In 1975 it was sold again, to become a mosque.

Now known as Banglatown, Brick Lane and streets off it are packed with top class Bangladeshi restaurants. When I visited there with Sam and Holly in the early part of this century, we dived into any nearby one simply to avoid scouts sent by other restaurants to seek our custom.

Monica Ali’s excellent novel, Brick Lane, is based on a family of immigrants from the country of her birth, now living in London’s East End.

Before I knew him, Geoff Le Pard posted https://geofflepard.com/2014/06/30/upcycling-buildings-if-only-it-was-as-easy-with-people/ which covers this history in greater depth, and with more photographs. He has added this link to his comment on my post.

Pooh Sticks

On this rather dull morning I wandered along the Wandle bank in Morden Hall Park; came out onto Morden Hall Road; turned left, then right into St. Helier Avenue; right again along Bristol Road; left into Central Road; then crossed London Road into Morden Park, through which I made my way back to Links Avenue.

Building works which have been continuing for some months now, upon inspection turn out to be the first London example of an Archimedes Screw. This is a micro hydro-electric turbine, a modern waterwheel which will harness the power of the river Wandle to generate enough electricity to provide for the renovated stable yard. A working model is already installed there. The workmen were just finishing their break. Mothers and children were enjoying the rose garden, as was a gentleman reading. I admired Morden Cottage on my way to the bank.

Having been long intrigued by two statues situated on the far side of the bank, yet unable to get close enough to examine or to photograph them properly, I asked a man strimming some weeds if he knew a way across. He suggested swimming or paddling. Since this didn’t seem a very elegant method, I enquired at the Property Office. Unfortunately my informant was correct. Anyone carrying out general maintenance has to wade across. This is a deliberate attempt to protect these relics from vandalism, which they have already suffered. The shop does not carry postcards of these works of art. So I did my best.

On my way past the rose garden I had seen a woman showing a little girl the water flowing under a small bridge. I had suggested you could play Pooh Sticks here. Whilst the adult smiled at this and acknowledged that you could, it didn’t happen. En route to the Property Office, I met Ruby and her mother, with her little brother in a pushchair. I had heard Ruby’s Mum saying that when they had gathered enough sticks they could play a game. ‘You’re not going to play Pooh Sticks are you?’, I asked, hopefully. ‘Yes, we often play it’, was the reply. They were making their way to an ornate bridge across the fast-flowing stream. They were happy to be photographed in this activity.

Hello Ruby.

Another bridge, this time in Central road, across the railway, afforded an alternative view of the mosque, of which I had been given a tour on 18th. May. In Morden Park the marquees had been removed, and the hay from the meadow was being baled up. What has not been removed is the flytipping. (see yesterday’s post)

This evening Jackie and I enjoyed a varied salad. I drank some Carta Roja Gran Reserva 2005. Jackie’s tipple was Hoegaarden.

A Cultural Experience

Early this morning we think we spotted the foxes’ den. Between the side fence of our garden and the back fences of a terrace of houses there is what was clearly once an access path. Each end of this has been blocked off and there is now no through way. It is so undisturbed that one of the residents has put a gate in his fence and extended his garden to the edge of ours. He has put in a brick path and is growing runner beans, tomatoes, and flowers in carefully tended soil. (More encroachment is detailed in a further post). Further down the path is a fence-high heap of sticks, rather like a beaver’s lodge or the nest of a roc, which has gradually, mysteriously, appeared. Sitting on top of this pile, having the occasional scratch, was a fox cub. It seems foxes are like dogs, in that they go round and round in circles settling into a resting position that they find comfortable. Not surprising really.

I suppose urban foxes don’t need to go to earth, because people think they are so cute. Some time ago I was consultant to an adoption agency in Putney. There the foxes lived in an Andersen shelter. Every spring the staff gathered at the upstairs window to watch the cubs gambolling on the lawn.

Just after 11, leaving the fox on his pile, I walked the circuit of Morden Park. The atmosphere there was quite eerie. Apart from one young man having a rant into his mobile phone and an ancient, knackered, overweight dog which seemed to have lost its owner, I encountered no other being in this wooded amenity, a short walk from an underground terminal station, and which takes an hour to circumnavigate. Apart from the rant and the dog’s laboured panting, the only sound, until I came to the stretch alongside London Road, was that of birdsong. It was almost, only almost, a relief to hear the roar of the traffic.

On this same London Road, on the site of what was once the Express Dairy, lies ‘the largest mosque in Eastern Europe’. Thinking that there was something incongruous about the huge hoardings virtually alongside advertising Matalan bikinis, I decided to visit it. Despite their preparing for a special event and it not really being convenient for a visitor to come, I was made most welcome and given a complete tour of what is clearly ‘a multipurpose complex’, with the exception of the womens’ prayer and other rooms. The area is vast. Having visited smaller London mosques I was unprepared for this. In addition to the huge public prayer rooms there are administrative and service blocks containing offices; meeting rooms; a free homeopathic medical centre, residential and eating facilities; a huge sports hall; a library and bookshop; their own television channel broadcasting services all over the world; and no doubt more I haven’t mentioned. Everything on an extremely large scale.

In the bookshop I was given a copy of the Koran and a book on the philosophy of Islam.

Security was understandably tight, with systems which would grace any airport, but I was given unrestricted access and didn’t have to go through the detector which my artifical hip would undoubtedly have set ringing. At the moment they are hosting teams from all over the world taking part in a 20-20 cricket competition. The teams were all accommodated there. I was shown their sleeping area and welcomed into the dining hall where a wonderfully aromatic curry was being served. I was invited to partake, but, since I was to be cooking liver, bacon and onions tonight, I declined. Sadly.

This mosque complex dominates the southern skyline. It is quite the most elegant building in Morden, contrasting with the 1960s Civic Centre and the rather earlier Underground station. I had come prepared to make a comparison between the physical nourishment provide by the Express Dairy and the spiritual nourishment to be found in a mosque. There is no comparison to be made. As far as I can see this environment provides everything.

Walking through to the centre of Morden and back to Links Avenue I contemplated what I had just experienced. The dominant sense was one of peace. In the vast prayer area a smattering of people were positioned for silent prayer. Here was, however, one contrast. All was even quieter than the deserted public park I had just walked through. But there was nothing eerie about it.